Teacher who likes to smack claims religious discrimination

Rainers claims he was fired because he refused to stop smacking his pupils. He says corporal punishment is God-ordained. But the department argues that the Rainers was ‘bold and misguided’ in his use of the Bible to justify his insistence on corporal punishment, reports the Cape Argus. ‘It is clear that because of his faith in God and claim to the Christian faith, Rainers does not believe that the laws of the country apply to him,’ counsel for the department, Thabani Masuku, argued. ‘He had committed an unlawful act and violated ... the constitutional values of a learner.\' Masuku said the question in this case was whether the corporal punishment is a right of a Christian teacher that must trump the right of the learners to dignity. Masuku pointed out that corporal punishment contravened provisions of the Schools Act and a Constitutional Court ruling. Full report in the Cape Argus